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Are video games unholy pastimes of the Devil, in your sincere estimation? Go ahead and fire your Minecraft-playing employees.  

Seven of the greatest and most entertaining achievements of human ingenuity. “I love that moment just before the curtain goes up…It’s a thrill that’s unequaled anywhere.” -Joel Grey It’s a […]

A comet that’s never crossed Earth’s orbit might lead to the most spectacular sky show in years! “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather be a superb meteor, […]

How afraid of them does the science say you should actually be? “Most estimates of the mortality risk posed by asteroid impacts put it at about the same risk as flying […]

Is it my cranky imagination or does Valentine’s Day become more of a big deal every year? All of the second-tier holidays seem to have gotten elevated in the last […]

Even at the speed of light, you’ll never reach these galaxies. “I realise now that I wanted to disappear. To get so lost that nobody ever found me. To go […]

“Regrets, I’ve had a few,” Frank Sinatra warbled in “My Way,” before adding wistfully, “But, then again, too few to mention.” Sinatra sang that song at the end of a […]

The only way out is to modify the laws of gravity, and new constraints rule those modifications out. “The discrepancy between what was expected and what has been observed has […]

We’re told that our high-tech meritocracy based on productivity is the source of our enlightenment when it comes to our resolute opposition to racism, sexism, and heterosexism.  Certainly the demands […]

The one thing that even the best of us do at times, and why it needs to stop. “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”–Mohandas […]

Someday, the Sun will expand, engulfing Mercury and Venus, and then some. Will we survive? “They do not see what lies ahead, when Sun has faded and Moon is dead.”-J.R.R. Tolkien […]

Here’s what it would look like if we started dreaming again. “There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program — your tax-dollar will go further.” –Wernher von Braun […]

An oyster reef costs about the same amount of money – $1 million per mile – as a seawall. But when you consider other factors outside of cost, the oyster reef wins by a mile.  

When things don’t add up, it’s a great sign that something amazing is right around the corner. Every Thursday, we take an older post from the Starts With A Bang archives […]

Many characteristics of the sociopathic personality—charm, ambition and impatience, an ability to attack problems with cold-hearted logic (not letting emotions get in the way)—are useful to society.

The annual rite of February’s African-American History Month in America feels more and more like a mixed blessing with each passing year. On one hand, setting aside time to learn […]

The following is a guest post by Mark Molloy “Sir we know our will is free, and there’s an end on’t.” (Samuel Johnson as quoted by J. Boswell in The Life […]

California’s program is still young and isn’t the world’s first emission trading program, but here are the top four reasons we’re celebrating – and why the global community should, too.

Does space stretch or does new space get created, and what does that mean for the conservation of energy? “If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch […]

How an observational signature from Cosmic Inflation could herald the scientific revolution of the century “Despite its name, the big bang theory is not really a theory of a bang at […]

Over the past century a war has been fought in universities around the world which has resulted in countless bottles of red ink spilled over students’ work, in the form […]

A new image editing method will have graphic designers cheering and weeping in equal measure. The new technique lets you take a two-dimensional image, and with as little as three […]

It’s a scientific truth of the Universe, one that many people — children especially — have trouble coming to terms with. But it doesn’t have to be a tragedy. “Through that last dark cloud is […]

If we scaled the entire Universe’s history from the Big Bang until now to be “one Universe year,” what would our future look like? “The way to love anything is to […]

Let others debate whether Santa Claus is white or not. There’s no debate that the definitive American Santa is political cartoonist Thomas Nast’s Merry Old Santa Claus (detail shown above) […]

You’ll frequently hear people say “the science is settled.” Scientifically speaking, can it ever be? “All the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to […]

In September I covered a paper that described the massive amount of bias created in the legal system in parts of the US where forensic laboratories are paid in return […]

So I’m teaching a seminar this semester on Technology, Biotechnology, and Democracy. Its balanced effort, of course, will be show how technology makes our lives both better and worse, as […]

For younger Americans, the President might very well be most vividly remembered for the way he died.

Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation, responded quite positively to the final point of my appreciative comments on his book.  I said liberal education is always countercultural.  Mark wisely […]